NORTHWEST TEEN PARENT CONNECTION HOSTS COMMUNITY EVENT FOCUSED ON PREGNANT AND PARENTING TEENS

The NW Teen Parent Connection is a collaboration of community groups and Hennepin County formed to prevent teen pregnancy while nurturing success for teen parents and their babies.

 On November 7, 2007, the fifth in a series of community events focused on the needs of pregnant and parenting teens in the northwest Hennepin area took place at the Brookdale Library. Community-based organizations that serve pregnant and parenting teens, city officials and representatives from Hennepin County including Commissioner Mike Opat, gathered to formalize their commitment to join together to provide a system of support for teen mothers, fathers and their babies by signing a Stakeholder Agreement.  By doing so, community stakeholders agree to provide link from their organization to the NW Teen Parent Connection and join in creating a “shared voice” that includes pregnant and parenting teens, medical providers, educational providers, social service and nonprofit agencies as well as local and county government units who are dedicated to planning and implementing services for teen parents in NW Hennepin County.  The Stakeholder group is a major link in the identification of ways to simplify access to systems that serve teen parents, increase services for teen parents in the northwestern suburbs and provide support to the NW Teen Parent Connection planning committee.

 Teen parents and their children are at great risk for long-term educational failure, poverty and other problems. 

- Nearly 20% of the teen parents in Hennepin County live in the northwestern suburbs. 

- The cities of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park, combined, have the highest  teen pregnancy rate in Minnesota outside Minneapolis.

- In 2004, there were 328 births to teens in northwest Hennepin County cities.  - This is 6.1% of all births in Northwest Hennepin County area. 

- One- third (32%) of births to teen girls in northwest Hennepin County are to girls   ages 15 to 17. 

- Two-thirds of teen births are to girls ages 18 to 19 years old. 

- African American, Asian and Latino teen moms in 2004 were over-represented  when compared when compared to their population size in northwest Hennepin.

(2006 Teen Parent Connection Report Card, Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health, April 2006)

 These realities prompted Hennepin County to initiate meetings with local providers in the community and the Northwest Hennepin Family Services Collaborative and the Robbinsdale Area Redesign Family Services Collaborative, to develop a suburban model of the Teen Parent Connection program that is in place in Minneapolis.